The Nuggets were in Dallas on April 6, playing an opponent that had lost eight consecutive games to Western Conference playoff teams. Denver made it nine. Yes, the Mavericks won 57 games in the regular season. But with their dud games against good teams — and their surplus of 30-somethings — the Mavericks seemed destined for another playoff debacle.

And here we are today. The Mavericks are the NBA champions, winning their first title Sunday night, 105-95 in Miami in Game 6 of the Finals.

Along the way, the Mavericks knocked off the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers and eliminated the surging Oklahoma City Thunder. Not only will the Mavericks be remembered as champions, they’re the team that triumphed over the overdog — the Miami Heat and its luminous trinity of egos.

The 2011 NBA Finals had a deeper meaning to basketball, for the Mavericks’ ascension showed that a team can’t just align stars and assume the title already is won. Dallas reminded all of us about what is right about the game — dedication, teamwork, the importance of role players and class.

Yes, with the power of the Creative Arts Agency, which represents numerous A-listers in the NBA, there will be more superteams created. Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire will make one more run with Denver native Chauncey Billups next season for the New York Knicks and then, possibly, add an all-star point guard in his 20s. (Chris Paul? Deron Williams?) And the Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard will be a free agent a summer from now.

The NBA is changing, but the Mavericks showed that old-school values and an invaluable leader can send you to the jeweler.

“I think it comes from your veteran leadership,” Dallas guard Jason Terry said recently. “Guys realizing that the opportunity is now, guys realizing that this opportunity doesn’t come very often. The team we put together this season has been a special group.”

This year’s Finals will be talked about for years to come, a perfect cap to a postseason tangled in stimulating story lines. We saw the fall of the Lakers, Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs. We saw the rise of the Thunder, Chicago Bulls and Memphis Grizzlies. There were moments of undeniable brilliance during the playoffs, from Brandon Roy’s fourth-quarter comeback to LeBron James’ defense against league MVP Derrick Rose to Mavs star Dirk Nowitzki, who rewrote his legacy with each improbable jumper in winning MVP honors for the Finals.

“Dirk has improved his game, his confidence and his ability to be unstoppable,” Nuggets coach George Karl said during the playoffs.

Nowitzki admitted numerous times during the 2011 Finals that he was still haunted by the 2006 Finals, which the Mavericks led 2-0 only to fall apart in Game 3. They ended up losing the championship series to, yes, Miami and Dwyane Wade.

This year, Nowitzki’s incredible comeback in Game 2 of the Finals kept Miami from going up 2-0. And now Nowitzki has the sweetest vindication possible, defeating the same team to win his first NBA title.

The NBA, in the midst of a renaissance, is at a crossroads. A lockout looms. The draft is June 23 and eight days later, the league likely will be shut down.

Team owners, according to NBA commissioner David Stern, are collectively losing hundreds of millions of dollars. Players are furious about a potential hard salary cap, franchise tag or other alterations to the league’s collective bargaining agreement.

Representatives of the players and team owners will be meeting, but its unclear whether either side has a fourth-quarter closer.

“I know that both sides will make their best offers before the lockout,” Stern said recently, “because if they don’t, there’s going to be a lockout that would be destructive of our business from the owners’ perspective and the players’ perspective.”

Team owners want a hard salary cap and shorter contracts. It’s possible, similar to the NHL seven years ago, that there could be a salary rollback. But the NBA players aren’t budging. For now.

And so, here we are. The NBA has a newly minted championship team, record television ratings, the rise (for better or worse) of a superteam and a cemented legend in Nowitzki, who exudes what’s right about basketball.

Hope you enjoyed it, because it’s possible we won’t be watching the NBA again for quite some time.

Benjamin Hochman was a sports columnist for The Denver Post until August 2015 before leaving for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his hometown newspaper. Hochman previously worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for its Hurricane Katrina coverage. Hochman wrote the Katrina-themed book “Fourth and New Orleans,” published in 2007.

Rockies all-star shortstop crushed his 100th career homer against the Orioles Friday night at Coors Field. The blast was a mammoth shot that had some history behind it as Story is now the fasted shortstop on MLB history to 100 home runs.